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    • New Talents Open Call
      Eastern Neighbours Film Festival (ENFF) began in The Netherlands in 2008 with the idea to offer Dutch and international audiences a unique glimpse into the cinema of their neighbors from Eastern and Southern Europe. This annual event presents the most recent, exciting, and thought‐provoking films, from countries with small, but often powerful film industries, that… Read more: New Talents Open Call
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      Unable To attend the festival in person? No problem! From November 27th to December 3rd, we’re thrilled to bring you a curated selection of this year’s films available for online viewing! Catch our captivating Opening Film Ivan’s Land, or the touching Closing Film Seventh Heaven. Or explore a collection of shorts from the New Talents Competition! Follow along… Read more: ENFF 2023 On Demand!
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      We talked with Monika Lošťáková about contemporary Slovak cinema.
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      In Work in Progress, emerging filmmakers and artists will present their works in development to the audience and engage in discussions with Dutch experts.
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      Every year, ENFF brings special musical guests who bring beauty to the program and further represent the rich cultures of their countries to a Dutch audience.
    • Film Marathon
      Join us for the Film Marathon, a new concept in which we merge two components, Short Films, Big Stories, and New Talents Competition into a whole-day screening of short films!

The Land of Aliens

dir. OLGA CHERNYKH 

DUTCH PREMIERE

A short sci-fi drama about an enemy invasion of a peaceful land.

An amateur astronomer experiences the last peaceful day on his land before the invasion of “aliens”. He has to choose: to stay in his place, surrounded by invaders, or to leave all he has and fly away into the unknown. The story is told in a fairy-tale manner, but the constructed world accurately recalls today’s world.

SHOWTIMES | Special Feature: New Talents Competition 2 with Falling, Mammoth, The Most Beautiful Corner in the World & Tiny Summer Trilogy
– Special Guests: directors Dordije Petrovic and Anna Gyimesi

Saturday, 25 November – 16:00


Sunday, 26 November – 10:30

Buy Tickets Here!

THE LAND OF ALIENS | 2023 | 19 min| Ukraine

PRODUCTIONAnzhela Sokol, Iryna Nikonchuk
CASTYurii Kulinich, Alisa Kliushkina, Ihor Shcherbak, Maksym Burlaka
SCREENPLAYMaryna Brodovska
CINEMATOGRAPHYYevhen Sakhno
EDITINGHanna Perepelitsa
LANGUAGEUkrainian
SUBTITLESEnglish

DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT

This project was written as a personal reflection on the conflict that was going on in the Eastern part of Ukraine, where I’m originally from. War and “aliens” came to my city – Donetsk and stayed for 8 years. Now after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Donbas has become the hottest spot in the war and probably the bloodiest place in the whole world. My family had to move in 2015 and leave our home and our lives. In 2022 we were forced to flee again. So as a director of the film, I deeply understand the feelings of the main character. We (me and Maryna – the scriptwriter of the film) had an intention to show such experience and talk about the problem of leaving home in a fairytale way, creating a world of non-existing states and languages, using “aliens” as a metaphor for all the invaders.

DIRECTOR’S BIO 

Olga was born in Donetsk, Ukraine in 1990. In 2017, she graduated with an MA from the Cinematography department of the Kyiv National I. K. Karpenko-Karyi University and worked as a director of photography on various Ukrainian and international fiction and documentary projects. She received a postgraduate diploma in “Documentary Filmmaking” and is an alumni of a Sergey Bukovsky film course. She has taken part in several international workshops and residency programs such as IDFA Academy, the “Aristoteles Workshop” in Romania, “Cinemaambulente” in Italy, “Eurasiadoc” in Kyiv and B2B Docs. She was awarded a Special prize for her short video “Express Your Taste” in the International “Papaya Young Directors” competition in Poland; and received a cinematography award for the same video at the “Kinooko” festival in Kyiv.